A Death-bed Sermon

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 20, 1870

A Death-bed Sermon.

The New York Daily Star gives the following as of actual occurrence in this city:

“A gentleman died last week at his residence in one of our up-town fashionable streets, leaving eleven millions of dollars. He was a member of the Presbyterian church, in excellent standing, a good husband and father, and a thrifty citizen. On his death-bed, lingering long, he suffered with great agony of mind, and gave continual expression to his remorse for what his conscience told him had been an ill-spent life. ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, as his weeping friends and relations gathered about his bed, ‘Oh! if I could only live my years over again. Oh! If I could only be spared for a few years, I would give all the wealth I have amassed in a lifetime. It is a life devoted to money-getting that I regret; it is this which weighs me down and makes me despair of the life hereafter!’ His clergyman endeavored to soothe him, but he turned his face to the wall. ‘You have never reproved my avaricious spirit,’ he said to the minister. ‘You have called it a wise economy and forethought, but I now know that riches have been only a snare for my poor soul. I would give all I possess to have hope for my poor soul!’ In this sad state of mind, refusing to be consoled, this poor, rich man bewailed a life devoted to the mere acquisition of riches. Many came away from the bedside impressed with the uselessness of such an existence as the wealthy man had spent, adding house to house, and dollar to dollar, until he became a millionaire. All knew him to be a professing Christian, and a good man, as the world goes; but the terror and remorse of his death-bed administered a lesson not to be lightly dismissed from memory. He would have given all his wealth for a single hope of Heaven.”